Spline rectangular thick/thin plate elements. (Chinese. English summary) Zbl 0571.73079
Using the principle of the minimum potential energy and the spline local interpolation functions, this paper develops the biquadratic and bicubic spline thick/thin plate elements, which can be used to analyze both the thick (i.e. including transverse shearing deformations) and thin plates. Numerical examples show that both elements can give highly accurate results with a few degrees of freedom.